RegulationMay 13 2016

Tyrie quizzes FCA over treatment of whistleblowers

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Tyrie quizzes FCA over treatment of whistleblowers

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is under pressure from the Treasury Committee and a small business lobby group to explain how it plans to improve its treatment of financial services sector whistleblowers.

Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie has written to FCA acting head Tracey McDermott asking for details on how the regulator plans to better safeguard those who raise the alarm on wrongdoing.

Mr Tyrie’s intervention follows concerns from not-for-profit business lobby organisation SME Alliance, which has accused the FCA of betraying the confidence of whistleblowers, including the Alliance itself.

Back in January, the body wrote to Mr Tyrie expressing concerns that the FCA had passed on sensitive information to the high street banks – the objects of SME Alliance’s complaints.

The following month, Mr Tyrie wrote to Ms McDermott for her response to these claims, and asked what progress the regulator had made towards implementing the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards’ recommendation that it encourage a “significant shift in cultural attitudes towards whistleblowing”.

In March, she responded by confirming the FCA did not treat the SME Alliance as a whistleblower and subsequently disclosed some of its information on individual customers of banks accused of falsifying their records.

Her reasons for doing so rested on the fact SME Alliance had not asked the FCA not to share its information with the banks.

A statement from Mr Tyrie’s office said it was unclear from Ms McDermott’s letter whether the FCA raised the issue of confidentiality at the time with SME Alliance.

Tyrie, in his latest letter, said three years later the regulator appeared still not to have grasped what was needed to create an appropriate environment for whistleblowers to come forward.

peter.walker@ft.com